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440 ofoulli CDearhorn oflreet, (Chicago 


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1928 


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a A. A -A ■*. <*» A .A. .A. 







COPYRIGHT, 192.8, WILLETT, CLARK & COLBY 



P5 35/I 

. IU 54-X IV5 




* 

> • « 




PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
BY THE PLIMPTON PRESS 'NORWOOD ‘MASS. 


DEC-6'28 

©CIA 


3152 




To 

Charles 




























(Contents 


Concerning the Speech of Mountains ~~ i 
Dawn and New Snow 4 
Fireweed —• 5 

If I Listen Long and Long ~~ 6 

Mountain Alders ™ 7 

The Grand Dalles Hills — 8 

Winter Evening — 10 

Who Knows a Mountain? ~~ 11 

September *♦<►• 12. 

October — 13 
Fields ~~ 14 
Prodigality 15 
Timberline — 16 





-eWs- 

A Mountain in Midsummer ~~ 

Wind is a Cat ~~ 18 

Sunset on the Columbia •— 19 

Refugee ~~ 20 

Calypsos ~~ 21 

This Mountain ~~ 22 

Before Storm ~~ 25 

Slippers ~~ 26 

The Tower Clock ~~ 27 

Motoring At Night ~~ 28 

Sea-Going ~~ 29 

The Reflection ~~ 30 

Consanguinity -*-31 

In a Truck Garden --32 

i860 —• 33 

Chinook Wind ~~ 34 
Vegetable Garden ~~ 36 
Black Raspberry Bushes ~~ 37 
Wild Geese — 38 





-eWs- 

Silver Thaw 39 
The Old Bull ~~ 40 
First Signs ~~ 41 
Playground — 42. 

Wheat Field ~~ 43 
Rebel — 44 

Something Called a Shadow ~~ 45 

Night Sounds ~~ 46 

The Sun Rises •— 47 

In the Park ~~ 48 

Minutix ~» 49 

When I Remember •»• 50 

Crushed Mint ~~ 31 

Eulalie —• 52 . 

Cleaning Day •*>* 54 
On the Market • 55 
Hill Dweller •— 56 
The Certain Calm 57 
These are the Strong »»* 58 





-e?^9- 

Harbingers 59 
Winter Orchard ~~ 60 
Tomorrow and Tomorrow ~~ 61 
Dust — 61 

Country Doctor (To My Father) ~~ 63 

Knitting Factory 64 

A Song for Churning ~~ 65 

The Puddle 66 

Discovery 67 

Orchardist **>• 68 

Labyrinth 69 

When April Came ~~ 70 

In the Night — 71 

In a Show Case •— 71 

The Invader ~~ 73 

At a Lunch Counter ~~ 74 

Dream Substance ~~ 75 

Poverty Buys — ~~ 76 

Mother — A Portrait —• 77 





- 1$m> - 

Beads — 78 

To a Girl Poet with a Lover 79 
Remembered Things ~~ 80 
Dust Motes — 81 
Peter Schatt 82. 

Back of a Mountain ***• 85 

Bread 88 

Butter ~~ 89 

The New Bridge 90 

Fir Forest 91 
























Concerning the Speech of Mountains 

Mountains talk; 

Lesser mountains speak the folk tongue 
of forests 

Wherein the sweet shrill tones of green 
heights 

Commingle strangely with the deep gut¬ 
turals of canyons; 

A tongue rich with the idioms of wind 
and rain and snow, 

Poignant with the frail pink of rhododen¬ 
drons, 

Sibilant with rustling leaves and running 
water, 

Bitter with tang of cedar and fir, 

Accented with the precision of sword 
ferns, 

Punctuated by falling cones and blue 
wings; 

Its quaint and ordered forms 

Older than runes, 

Lovelier than psalms, 

More potent than benisons of priests. 





Mountains talk; 

Young mountains have tongues of fire. 
They harangue at length on death 
Preaching a doctrine of destruction. 

They make a cult of flame 
And dramatize their mad convictions 
In cataclysmic rumblings, horrific up¬ 
heavals and molten rivers. 


Mountains talk; 

But old white mountains 

Have learned the wisdom of repression, 

The effectiveness of silence, 

The eloquence of slow and awful gestures, 
Uplifted palms may support the heavens, 
May cup the thunders; 

An extended finger may shred a cloud, 
Shatter a moon-flask, 

Pierce a dawn — 

— Blood of a young day on snow is 
crimson, 

Of a dying day, purple; 

A clenched fist may bruise the sun. 





- eWb --—• 

The shadow of a white mountain across 
the world 

Is the measure of forever. 

Mountains talk; 

The loftiest mountains, still cowled in 
mystery, 

Commune with the prophets, 

And interrogate the stars. 

Mountains talk; 

Their language is a composite 

Of all peoples, of all lands, of all ages, of 
all planets, of all seas. 

Its fundamentals are beauty. 

I am studying the language of mountains. 


3 





-eWs--- 

Dawn and New Snow 

On the mountain 
Dawn and new snow. 

New snow 

Smoky grey as wild asters. 

Frosted like spruce needles, 

Lupin blue, 

Briar-rose pink. 

New snow 

Veined crimson in black canyons; 
Penciled in sudden silver 
On high ledges. 

The kneeling trees at timberline 
Are cowled in white wool; 

The rocks are mauve-feathered 
Like the breasts of doves; 

The shadows of the rocks 
Are muted purple. 

Dawn . . . 

New snow. . . . 






Fireweed 


It follows on the heels of carnage; 

It revels in ashes. It thrives on the hot 
ashes of pine needles 

And fir cones; on the stilled laughter of 
larches. 

It inhales smoke with impunity and ex¬ 
hales magenta flame. 

It sears new wounds; it congeals on the 
edges of old wounds. 

It distils a strange pungency from pitch- 
globules, 

(Melted rosin is the death-sweat of burn¬ 
ing trees) 

It sacks ghost-honey for conspiring bees. 

It ignores the decorous black of burnt- 
over hills and shouts 

Ribald chanteys in the charnel house. 

It dances in the deserted abodes of wild 
creatures; 

At the dried sources of mountain brooks; 
on the grave of a forest. 

Fireweed. 


5 






If I Listen Long and Long 


If I listen long and long 
Shall I put silence into song? 

Silence that is crystal-wrought 
Of a thought within a thought? 

Radiant silences that are 
Behind a world, around a star? 

Silence that will go with me 
Into, beyond, eternity? 

If I listen long and long . . . 


6 





Mountain Alders 


I have known alders, 

But none like these 
Mountain-bred, virile, 
Mail-clad trees. 

Fine, those others, 

And boy-slim, but none 
Like plumed knights jousting 
Their way to the sun; 

None tall as wind-swayed, 
Pennant-tipped spars; 

None so naively 
Proud of old scars. 





The Grand Dalles Hills 

These hills across the river from the 
town; 

These Grand Dalles hills with hollow 
hips, and crests 

That crumble on the sky; whose bony, 
brown 

Hands clutch at clouds to cover naked 
breasts; 

These hills rock-ribbed, gaunt, surfaced 
with a crust 

Of ocher yellow sand; inured to hurt 

Of searing suns and winds’ untempered 
lust; 

Abandoned . . . are not always thus in¬ 
ert. 

I’ve seen them run down to the river’s 
brink 

At dawn with young dreams in their eyes, 
and pause, 

Startled, to watch a golden eagle drink; 

Then dropping robes of sheerest, bluest 
gauze 





From pale limbs, leap into the water 
where 

They shake the stars out of their tawny 
hair. 





Winter Evening 


I never tire 

Of my garden in the fire. 

While snow thrums on the pane 
Delphiniums and goldenglow 
Stand straight and tall 
Against the sooty wall. 

Where flames spread 
Are daffodils, a tulip bed. 

As the wind shrills fast and faster 
I see an aster in the smoke, 

Wistaria, a lilac tree; 

There is a hint of mint and tansy. 

A coal becomes a pansy. 

And when a backlog crashes to its death 
The ashes 

Are white violas and babybreath. 


io 





Who Knows a Mountain? 

Who knows a mountain? 
One who has gone 
To worship its beauty 
In the dawn; 

One who has slept 
On its breast at night; 

One who has measured 
His strength to its height; 

One who has followed 
Its longest trail, 

And laughed in the face 
Of its fiercest gale; 

One who has scaled its peaks, 
And has trod 
Its cloud-swept summits 
Alone with God. 





September 


Lilies still lift 
Their laughter to the sun, 
Fishes carve the air 
And waves still run 
On glad, bare feet 
Along the pebbly shore, 
Lapping the wharf 
And the boathouse door. 
But nightwinds chant 
Sagas of grief, 

And the lake holds 
A yellow leaf. 


12. 





October 


Summer is a tang of water-cress 
On my mouth, 

The dust of rose petals. 

Birds press south. 

Tomorrow — or perhaps tomorrow 
There will be snow. 

Winds know. 

Zinnias know 
And I — 

Why must there be for me 
Only the way back, 

Or on? 

There is this quiet day, 

This yellow tree . . . 





Fields 


Fields are gentle and will grow 
What of seed and fruit men sow; 
Will long yield obedience 
To a harrow or a fence. 

But once leave a field unplowed, 
Daisies, like a summer cloud, 
Will run in to kiss the meek 
Seamy contours of its cheek, 

And to pin with petaled stars 
A veil of pity on its scars. 


14 





Prodigality 


The Artificer wastes beauty so; 

He is prodigal of snow. 

Into night He drops a star; 

It leaves behind no curved white scar. 

He paints a hill with violets 
Which no one sees and He forgets. 

And hides the palpitating art 
Of poesy in a yokel’s heart. 


*5 





Timberline 


There are no sounds at timberline, 

But the wind in a twisted pine, 
Thin-voiced water where it goes 
Suddenly from melted snows, 

And through the omnipresent hush, 
The calling of a hermit thrush 
Who spins his song and leaves it there 
To unravel on the air. 


16 





A Mountain in Midsummer 


Her ermine mantle and her robe 
Of diamond-sewn brocade, 

Her ruff of lace, her silver shoes 
Are worn and summer-frayed. 

And yet she stands aloof and proud, 
A queen for all her tatters, 
Communing with the cool, wise stars 
Upon celestial matters. 


*7 





Wind is a Cat 


Wind is a cat 
That prowls at night, 

Now in a valley, 

Now on a height. 

Pouncing on houses 
Till folks in their beds 
Draw all the covers 
Over their heads. 

It sings to the moon; 

It scratches at doors; 

It lashes its tail around chimneys 
And roars. 

It claws at the clouds 
Till it fringes their silk; 

It laps up the dawn 
Like a saucer of milk. 

Then chasing the stars 
To the tops of the firs. 

Curls down for a nap 
And purrs, and purrs. 





Sunset on the Columbia 


From the trail 
We saw the meager trees 
Fringing the mountain’s rim 
Reach out slim eager fingers 
And draw the great gold bubble 
From a reluctant sky. 

The frail ball burst. 

Stabbing all the high white clouds 
With rose and amber light. 

Flames, amethyst and orange, 

Hissed at the water’s edge, and dama¬ 
scened 

The sedge blades with silver. 

A crow on somber slow wings 
Flew low across a bar of crimson-crested 
sand. 

Dogwood burned wanly among the firs. 
Dusk, tiptoeing over the valley floor 
Threw misty blurs of larkspur blue 
About the drowsy canyons. 

Someone touched a taper to a star. 

Sleep beckoned from the cabin door. 







Refugee 


To escape from grief 
I ran to cover; 

A place four-walled 
And roofed over. 

Beaten out by despair 
I fled to the sea. 

Horizons and sky 
Encompassed me. 

A wave broke white, 

A lone gull called . . . 

I was back in my covert, 
Roofed and walled. 






Calypsos 


In this solemn wood 
Was treasure-trove 
Of elfin orchids, 
Piquant, mauve. 

As unseemly 
As a birch 
In the dooryard 
Of a church; 

As a red curl 
In a locket 
Hidden in 
A beadle’s pocket. 





-eW9- 

This Mountain 

And I shall have this mountain as mem¬ 
ory. 

Always. 

For sleepless nights 
It shall be a cool pillow, 

Moon-linen, 

Quilts of dusks — 

Satin, blue, filled with the down of 
shadows. 

Water shall sing under ice. 

There shall be soporific of pine. 

Ancient wind, 

Peace. 

For moments of exultation 
Dead rocks shall come alive 
And leap, madly. 

At the mis-step of a glacier 
The stable ground shall quake; 

There shall be mutability of certitude; 
Tragedy of triumph. 


2 . 2 . 





-- 

For vigil 

There shall be thrill of an ascent; 
Crevasses to skirt, 

Aretes to traverse, step by careful step, 
Footholds to be hacked in green ice, 

The tug of an encircling rope. 

There shall be bubbles of steam 
Blown from the lips of fissures, 

And the sulphuric breath of a sleeping 
monster; 

And at length 

A dizzying last peak conquered — 

Top of the world; 

Heaven within toss of a voice. 


For joy 

There shall be mountain noon, 
White-hot, white-cold; 

Acres of glazed snow, sun-faceted, 
Lava-green cataracts; 

A dazzling hour, 

And frangible . . . 


2-3 





For pain 

There shall be anodynes of dawns 
Frosted rose-silver; 

Blue flowers at the edge of snow; 
Avalanche lilies. 

There shall be tortured trees at timberline 
Enduring . . . 

For fever 

Water dripping from snow, 

And the breath of snow. 

For black sorrow 

Glaciers dying that rivers may be born; 
Clouds, the avatars of waters, lost in 
seas; 

Beauty transcending beauty; 

The forever behind forever. 





Before.Storm 


In the forest 
Is no fleet 
Staccato hurry 
Of small feet. 

Is no subtle 
Undertone 

Of wing-brushed leaf 
Or falling cone. 

Yet as I listen 
Something stirs 
The tense branches 
Of the firs; 

Something pauses 
With a sigh 
Above the trees 
And — passes by. 





Slippers 


When I was young 
And my slippers were red 
I could kick higher 
Than my own head. 

When I grew up 
And my slippers were white 
I could dance the stars 
Right out of the night. 

Now I am old! 

My slippers are black; 

I walk to the corner 
And I walk back. 





The Tower Clock 

From the tower clock 
A faery chime 
At mystic mid-hour 
Shakes down time. 

Shakes down time 
As winds in May 
Toss twelve petals 
Of cherry spray. 

Shakes down time 
As Heaven jars 
From their moorings 
Twelve gold stars. 





Motoring at Night 

The ebon-winged hills 
Were no sooner defined 
As shapes on the sky 
Than we left them behind. 

A tree, like a runner. 

Loping before, 

Sprinted a mile or two 
Then was no more. 

But the rollicking moon 
With his mangy mist-hound 
Crashed through the forest 
Bound after bound 

To the side of the car, 

Nor could we outride 
His curious stare, 

His seven-league stride. 





Sea-Going 


Out where sea and sky curve into one — 
Calm, yellow sky, gold-crested leaping 
sea — 

I saw a great ship riding to the sun, 

A smoke-wraith following her wistfully. 
Her funnels and her even, ebon keel — 
Faery chimneys and wave-winged slender 
frame — 

Too motionless, too perfect, too unreal; 

A dream-ship limned in momentary flame. 
I wondered at the cargo which she bore, 
Cedar, perhaps, or fruit, or ancient gold; 

I visioned faces from the lonely shore. 
And hopes and fears stowed in the long, 
slim hold . . . 

She faded to a distant, dusky blur, 

And all my heart went yearning after 
her. 


z 9 






The Reflection 


Often I forget to look 
In shop windows as I pass, 

I am so intent upon 
A reflection in the glass. 

Strange indeed it should appear 
Dowdy, squat and small, 

When at heart it is so slim 
And elegantly tall. 


3 ° 





Consanguinity 


I thought to lose a bitter mood 
In a forest solitude. 

The brooding stillness served to stress 
My heart-broken loneliness. 

Twanging fingers in a pine 

Flicked those taut nerve-strings of mine, 

And mirrored in a tragic pool 
Was the visage of a fool. 





-- 

In a Truck Garden 

All day with the sun 
On her small curved back, 
Hunching along 
On a gunnysack, 

She weeded the tender, 

Young onions, or set 
Cabbages out, 

If the ground was wet. 

Her eyes seemed riveted 
To the rows, 

And what she was thinking 
Nobody knows. 

But once when a white-winged 
Plane soared by, 

She lifted her head 
And scanned the sky 

As a mole from its burrow 
Might gape at a bird; 

Then squatted down 
With never a word. 


3 1 





i86o 


Her daddy was a gentleman, 

White, ah, white! 

Her mammy a comely wench 
But black, quite. 

She, the sweet of either, 

Was palest honey-brown; 

They stood her on the auction block 
And sized her up and down. 

They wrenched her mobile lips apart 
And felt her slender thighs; 

Appraised her hair for its straight length, 
Her creamy-lidded eyes. 

Bids furiously running 
The gamut of her charms; 

Gold-budded breasts, patrician throat, 
Her ankles and her arms. 

And all the quivering grace of her 
Slim as a willow bole; 

“Going, going, going, gone!” 

And heaven rest her soul! 


33 





-eW9-- 

Chinook Wind 

At dawn Chinook Wind strode over the 
hills. 

The black feather in his hair sang to the 
swiftness of his coming. 

His bare knees gleamed like copper suns. 

With a lash woven of mists, he herded 
the wild cattle of winter from the 
mountains. 

He tore the storm clouds from the heights 
and tossed them into canyons. 

He poured flagons of warm rain down the 
throats of valleys. 

He laughed, and woke a waterfall; 
he shouted, and blue-eyed lakes 
peered through rifts in the ice. 

He leaned on the huge flank of a fir; it 
shook the snow from its mighty 
mane and pawed the sky. 

Where he ran down the furrows of a field, 
wheat sprouted; where he rested on 
a meadow, it was clothed in sudden 
green; where he leapt over a swamp. 


34 






- em$ - 

willows became gold wands, osiers, 
crimson-tipped arrows; where he 
circled a hazel copse, pale yellow 
mist fringed the bushes. 

At dusk he departed swiftly. 

With his going, limpid sea water flowed 
into the hollow of the sky; a crys¬ 
tal ram’s horn swung on the highest 
branch of a cottonwood; a tracery 
of frost limned every blue shadow. 
There was a tang of wild honey on the 
air. 


35 





Vegetable Garden 


Strange 

How carrots toil 

To yellow length 

In the selfsame soil 

Where beets spin purple tops; 

Where potatoes grow 

Neat brown crops 

Down the radiant pink length 

Of radish rows. 

One stops to think . . . 


36 





-6W9'- 

Black Raspberry Bushes 

Like maidens in aprons with white 
fluted frills, 

In April they dance with the wind up the 
hills. 

Sedately in summer they carry the symbols 

Of matronly thrift — needles and thim¬ 
bles. 

Prim little old women in winter they go 

In stiffly starched dresses of mauve calico. 


37 





Wild Geese 


I saw a Gypsy caravan 
Careening swiftly by, 

A nomad fleet vignetted 
Against a silver sky. 

They passed in strange formation, 
Ebon wedge-shaped bars; 
Signaling the amber moon, 
Steering by the stars. 

In their barbaric chanteys 
Ringing wild and free, 

Were all the songs I cannot sing 
And all their poignancy. 


38 





Silver Thaw 


Because of some strange alchemy 
The rain turned to crystal as it fell, 

And drowned each tiniest twig and leaf 
In a pellucid well. 

A belated crimson rose — 

Sweet survivor of the fall — 

Became a lovely lambent flame 
In a blown-glass ball. 

I shivered as I took it 
In my hands to hold; 

How should I know a thing of fire 
Could be so cold? 


39 





The Old Bull 


Always at dusk’s still hour, the old bull 
came 

Slowly through the trees to contemplate 

From the hill’s brim, the aftermath of 
flame, 

And to nuzzle the padlocked pasture gate. 

Behind him in the shadows of the wood 

A host of shadowy figures seemed to mull 

In the gold-slanted dust, the while he 
stood 

Outlined on the sky, gaunt, unbeautiful. 

He alone of some long-vanished horde 

Remained; a king deposed; set there 
apart; 

He pawed the earth with baffled hooves 
and poured 

A cry of hunger from a breaking heart. 

Then listened, trembling in every limb, 

As Echo hurled it, empty, back to him. 


40 





First Signs 


When with my sharpened plough I prod 
The reluctant, inert sod 
From sleep, the drowsy turf 
Exhales a breath that’s some of surf, 

And drying kelp and tang of brine, 

Some of the pungency of pine, 

Of dusty bracken, cone-tipped fir, 

Of mignonette, of lavender, 

Of sweet briar, rosemary and rue; 

Some of frost and some of dew, 

Some of smoke from burning leaves; 

Some of sun on ripe corn sheaves— 

A potpourri of scents all sealed 
In the black breast of a field, 

And shattered now for heralding 
The white imminence of spring. 


4 1 





Playground 

In the middle of town 
There is a stray 
Square of ground 
Where children play. 

Where little running 
Feet have trod 
Out every flower 
And spear of sod. 

And yet I think 
It’s gladder — lots — 
Than any tended 
Garden spots. 





Wheat Field 


Destinies and dynasties 
Hang on your breath; 

Why not and why not, 

O life out of death? 

When millions on millions 
Have perished to make 
Soil for the substance 
You sentiently take 

As gold for your seed-heads. 
And transmute again 
Into beauty of women 
And lean strength of men? 


43 





Rebel 


When I am dead and, as I must, 
Exchange this pulsing flesh for dust — 
Such dust I promise you as will 
Be anything but meek and still — 

Dust of my lips in that re-birth 
Shall draw the very rain from earth; 
Purple dust of eyes endue 
Grape hyacinths with beaded blue; 
Dust of quick hands come to be 
Petals on an apple tree; 

Finest dust, the dust of hair, 

Tangled in a gold gorse snare; 

Feet of me flaked brown as rust 
Quaint runners in a windy gust; 

What other flecks remain shall flare 
Passionately on the air, 

Swirling dancers in the sun — 

Say not to me — oblivion! 


44 





Something Called a Shadow 


Something called a shadow lives in a tree, 
It creeps forth at dawn, oh, wistfully 
From leaf and branch until it is laid 
Across the earth in a shape of shade. 

Something that waits quietly on grass 
For the lingering last sun-rays to pass; 
Something broken and raggedly thinned 
When a tree is racked and flailed by wind. 

Something that leans on water or a wall 
And leaves no impress, so light its fall; 
Something whose hesitant feet still tread 
On the sun’s heels when a tree is dead. 


45 





Night Sounds 


Night sounds 
Are pointed and fine; 

Wraith fingers strumming 
Lute strings in a pine. 

Brooks thinly trickling 
From old earthern jars, 

The guttering flames 
Of burned-out stars. 

Dust shattered 
By summer rain, 

And wind like moccasined feet 
In grain. 


46 





-eWs- 

The Sun Rises 

The mountain leans against the sky 
As lightly as if blown 
From out a dream of ancient Greece, 
And carved of Parian stone. 

A Discobolus, it bends 
In its colossal pose, 

And as I look, it leaps to life 
With sudden gold and rose. 

Its arm describes an arc of flame; 

It lets the discus fly! 

Once more the sun rolls swiftly to 
Its goal across the sky. 


47 





In the Park 


Asters ’ purple candles gutter low, 
Maple’s flame is but an amber glow. 

Yet bees still loot the honey-crocks 
Of tardy crimson hollyhocks, 

And through the birches, silver-grey, 
A wind remembers May. 


48 





Minutiae 


In an exploratory mood 
I stripped my soul down to the nude. 

Then not content I bared the mesh 
Of tissue-web beneath the flesh. 

A spirit-seed was in the pod; 

Was it devil? Or was it God? 


49 





When I Remember 


There is a lonelier place than a dune 
With a sullen sea crumbling the edges; 
With old whining winds harassing the 
sands 

And rumpling the sedges. 

There is a lonelier place than a dune 
With a scud of grey clouds in November — 
There is my heart (O low-flying gull!) 
When I remember. 


5° 






Crushed Mint 


Something wakened me at dawn — 
Grass was bent beneath the dew — 
A sound I could not understand, 

A tang of fragrance strange and new. 

But when I hastened out to look, 
There was nothing but the print 
Of a little cloven hoof 
Stamped upon a bed of mint. 


5 1 





Eulalie 


A.re ye happy, 

Eulalie, 

So high, so far 
Above the seal 

“My sea,” — her voice 
Was proud — 

“Is the valley 
Filled with cloud.” 

“From my cabin 
I look down . . . 

For masts, I’ve steeples 
In the town.” 

Ah, Eulalie, 

The blowing brine — 

“Up here there’s tang 
Of fir and pine.” 

And thundering waves. 
Say , what of thesel 
“I have the wind 
In tall green trees.” 


S 2 - 






-eWb- 

Still, don t ye miss 
The wheeling gull 7 . 
“Nay, eagles are 
So beautiful.” 

Eulalie , 

Ye will stay on 7 
“Oh, aye! So long 
As there is John!” 


53 





Cleaning Day 


Who is the weaver 
Of the sheer 
Faery fabric 
I find here? 

Who fills the corners 
Of my room 
With the product 
Of her loom? 

Who toils all night 
To fit in place 
What in a moment 
I erase? 

Ho, witchling, 

With the spinneret, 
I’ll catch you yet. 
I’ll catch you yet. 


54 





On the Market 

Housewives crowd 
From stall to stall 
Appraising vegetables 
In fall. 

Do they but think 
Of ways to use 
The gorgeous things 
In soups and stews? 

Oh, I can see 
A palm, a parrot, 

In a green and yellow 
Carrot, 

And a summer 
All compressed 
In a ripe tomato’s 
Breast. 





Hill Dweller 


For him who builds his house upon a hill 

The sun is looped with peaks in purple 
tiers; 

Tall cedars flail the sky at the wind’s will, 

A crystal river flashes, disappears. 

Storms hold wild carnival; lightnings 
parade; 

Fledgling days creep from a flamingo’s 
breast; 

Night mines the stars with a deep-driven 
spade, 

Moons die in glory and mists haunt the 
crest. 

Who builds his house upon a hill, his hips 

Are girt with wide horizons, and his thirst 

Is quenched by valleys lifted to his lips. 

Each hour’s a play for him alone rehearsed. 

A net is woven for him out of rain 

And there’s a catch of dreams within the 
seine. 


5 6 





The Certain Calm 


For harassed minds, for hearts assailed by 
ills. 

For all abrasions of the soul, all scars, 

There is a panacea of tall hills, 

The healing balm of rediscovered stars; 

The scent of dew on sleeping ferns and 
grass, 

The flight of homing winds to waiting 
trees, 

And there are clouds that brush the moon 
and pass ... 

Shadows and dark’s pulsating subtleties. 

Before the constancy of night and sky; 

The certain calm; the peace ... if any 
grieves, 

He’ll shed unhappiness and let it lie 

As maples drop their weight of yellow 
leaves. 

And so detached from pain and comforted 

May even for a space forget the dead. 


57 






These are the Strong 


Not rushing, sudden water. 

Not wild and bitter wind. 

Not a body hanging 

For the black deed he has sinned; 

Not streams of molten lava, 

Not showers of meteors, 

Not tidal waves or thunder, 

Not famine and not wars 

Can prevail against the birthing 
Of a baby or a song — 

These are the strong, my brothers. 
These are the strong. 


58 





Harbingers 


These are spring’s first harbingers — 

A lifting of frost-burdened firs; 

Rose-red lacquered osier wands 
Piercing sudden shallow ponds; 

On the sky, a willow tree 
Limned in pale gold filigree; 

Meadows burnished with a sheen 
Of the frailest, stillest green; 

A tang of honey on the air; 

Water singing everywhere 

And winds as wistful as the breath 

Of one returned from death — from death. 


59 





Winter Orchard 


These apples lying on the ground 
Are the wormy and unsound; 
Their unblemished brothers hymn 
Holiness from every limb. 

Yet which is lovelier filigree — 
The fallen, or those on the tree? 
And where is choice in either lot? 
The saints dry up; the sinners rot. 


60 





Tomorrow and Tomorrow 


I am an old, old man; 

My yesterday 
Is spent; I have no lien 
On today. 

But tomorrow and tomorrow — 
They are mine to keep; 

Fill my pipe with dust of dreams 
And let me sleep. 


61 





Dust 


As a child 

I could not run care-free 
On the path 

Between the hollyhock rows 
Until I had dusted chairs 
And an old walnut highboy. 

I was given clouds 

Of pink and blue cheese-cloth 

To hem for dusters. 

I have spent more hours with dust 
Than with dawns or dreams. 

Dust has even come between me and the 
stars. 

In that clean, orderly city on the hill 
There is dust; 

Alabaster, 

Mother of pearl. 

Ebon boxes of dust. 

* * * * * * * 

Flowers grow out of dust. 


62. 





-- 

Country Doctor 
(To my Father) 

Beneath his linen duster, sagged and bent, 
Day out, day in, for fifty years or more, 
Up the red clay hills and down he went, 
His black square case upon the buggy 
floor. 

I’ve heard his horses pounding down the 
lanes 

Lashed to desperate lather and to foam; 
I’ve seen him give the weary team the 
reins 

And worn out, sleep, the while they 
ambled home. 

His eyes were set in crinkled lines of 
mirth, 

Cheer was prescribed with bitter calomel, 
He was the arbiter of death and birth, 
The go-between of Heaven and of Hell. 
Tender as woman, steadfast as a rock, 
Small wonder all the hill-folk loved ‘ Old 
Doc! ’ 


6 3 






Knitting Factory 


Turn, spindles, zoom, zoom! 

Blue wool on every loom. 

Swiftly, swiftly, buzz, whir! — 
Bumblebees on larkspur, 

Honeybees on harebells — 

The hungry music wells, swells. 
Fields of camas flowers bloom 
Down the white length of the room. 
Moon-blue, snow-blue 
Winged shadows drift through — 
Twirl, swirl, untwist, 

Spin rain, weave mist, 

Reel dreams, wind songs, 

Shred sky on steel prongs! 

Drown sky under water, 

Shape a gown for Eve’s daughter. 
Blue wool, blue wool, 

Rhythmic color — beautiful! 


64 





A Song for Churning 

Churning is music; 

Come, child, and learn 
Old dance steps 
From a rhythmic churn. 

Come, child, and hear 
What the dasher is saying 
Of wind in clover, 

Of grasses swaying. 

Come, make your body 
A slim green stem, 

Make your arms flowers 
With rain on them. 

Make leaves of your fingers 
Young leaves a-flutter — 
Come, child, and dance 
To the splashing of butter. 





The Puddle 


I stepped into a puddle 
Not knowing it was there; 

My eyes were on the sunset, 
My head was in the air. 

At first it made me angry 
And spoiled the glorious view 
Until I saw the puddle 
Had its feelings ruffled too. 

But when the pool was quiet, 
I had a glad surprise, 

For all the lovely colors 
Were reflected in its eyes. 


66 





Discovery 


Birds know limitations; 
Unseen bars 

Turn them back frustrated 
This side of stars. 

Even dreams, untrammeled 
By fear of sky, 

Beat upon the sun 
And die. 

But faith, uplifted 
On its own winged leaven, 
Transcends the universe 
And crashes into heaven. 





Orchardist 


Here is the orchard 
Of my neighbor 
And it is mine 
Without the labor; 

Pink and green 
And winter greying 
Without the plowing 
And the spraying. 

As for the proud 
Ripe fruit, not all 
Branches grow inside 
A wall. 

And so when winds 
Come laughing, shaking, 
There too are apples 
For the taking. 


68 





Labyrinth 


Some go up 
And some go down 
The streets of the 
Familiar town. 

Purposefully 
To and fro 
As if they knew 
Wherefore they go. 

And yet each treads 
A wilderness 
Of inner joy 
And of distress; 

A maze of paths 
So intercrossed — 
Though no one guesses 
All are lost. 





When April Came 

We cut the name 
Of our little lass 
In the lawn’s 
Smooth, tender grass. 

Planting crocuses, 

Blue and gold, 

To heal the hurt 
Of the upturned mold. 

Packets of royal hue; 

That they 

Might blaze into bloom 
On her natal day. 

Save for their delicate 
Chaliced flame 
None answered to “Lucy,” 
When April came. 





In the Night 


I awoke in the night; 
Above the rain 
There was the sound 
Of a passing train, 

The clickity-click 
Of a passing train. 

It whistled a crossing, 

It whistled until 
It whistled an echo 
From over a hill, 

Whoo — oo, whoo — oo! 
From over a hill. 

I turned the key 
In my bosom lest 
It whistle the heart 
Right out of my breast, 
Heart of me, heart of me 
Out of my breast. 


7 1 





In a Show Case 


Butterfly wings imprisoned under glass, 
Bounded by the oval of a plaque; 

Each day their beauty calls me as I pass — 
Butterfly wings. 

It calls me, and often I turn back 
To view again that burnished mass 
Scintillating on the rack. 

Why should these jewel-like fragments 
so harass 

The heart? Silver, blue, gold and black 
Broken bits of loveliness — alas! 

Butterfly wings. 


I 2 - 





The Invader 


A wind swept through the casement 
Bearing on its tide 
Argosies of fragrance 
From the countryside; 

Invading every corner 
Of the fusty room 
With memories and petals 
And eloquence of bloom. 

My soul cast off its sandals, 

And unbound its hair, 

And leaping through the window 
Left me sitting there. 


73 





At a Lunch Counter 

As he lifts the salver 
With unconscious grace — 

The natural heritage 

Of a burden-bearing race — 

I think of strong backs bending 
To a sampan’s sweep; 

Of high-pitched voices lifting 
To its raucous creak; 

Of hosts of small brown women, 
Who stoically have gone 
To the old, old rice fields 
In the pagan dawn; 

And of a naive people 
That for ages fell 
Prostrate at the summons 
Of a temple bell. 


74 





Dream Substance 


Only a dream 
Could partake 
Of the thin black 
Of this lake. 

Of the sun’s 
Sifted sheen 
And shadows through 
Willowy green. 

Of a dragonfly’s 
Frail gauze 
Wings shimmering 
To a pause 

Over a lily’s 
Elfin metals — 
Mist-gold heart, 
Mist-silver petals. 





Poverty Buys - 


Poverty buys me 

Stranger things than money — 

Wintergreen berries, 

Fireweed honey. 

A gold bird on 
A last year’s thistle, 

Wild ginger and 
A willow whistle. 

A fat moon in 
A deep black ditch — 

I shall tickle its belly 
With an osier switch. 


76 





Mother — A Portrait 

Her hands have much 
Of Christ-like touch. 

Her smile on one 
Is benison. 

Her silver hair, 

A halo rare. 

Her step, a sound 
On Holy ground. 

Her dear face lined, 
But kind — kind. 

Of women, best 
And loveliest. 





Beads 


Pomegranate stains 
On a gold-leaf skin; 

Hair, ebon-winged, 

With a flower thrust in. 

Eyes, sloe-slanted; 

The whorl of a throat 
Honey above 
A pigeon-blue coat. 

“Seed-pearls and ivory, 
Coral and jade . . .” 
(Yellow plums, thumbs 
Of a small brown maid.) 

Shadows ... a voice . . . 
Is wind crying? 

Is a white heron 
Slowly flying 

At dusk over 
Rice fields and reeds? 

A Chinese girl in a shop 
Sells beads. 


78 





-- 

To a Girl Poet with a Lover 

Girl with a Gift, you cannot be 
Both love of Love and Poesy. 

Love love , dear child, and you will find 
Constancy and peace of mind. 

Become mistress of the Muse; 

He will play you fast and loose. 

(Sons of young love should be strong; 
Certain-frail, a first-born song.) 

Love will be the counterpart 
Of a steadfast, gentle heart. 

Muse is passionate and bold. 

Blowing hot and blowing cold. 

Love will wrap you in a shawl; 

Muse will bare you, soul and all. 

If I dared, I’d say, “Forget! 

Forget the Muse! ’’ — and yet — and 
yet — 


79 





Remembered Things 


Remembered things are like bits of 
music; 

Aprils starred with daffodils, 

Wild violets spread in a tufted quilt, 

A lake set in gold-green hills. 

Pear trees coifed in white like Breton 
maids, 

The witchery of a moon-sweet hour. 
Candles burning Christmas eve. 

The fragile beauty of a flower. 


Remembered things are like bits of music; 
Not all songs have a glad refrain — 

The day my mother’s soul departed 
Was grey with rain. 


80 





Dust Motes 


Dust of the gold air, 

Were you a dancer? 

The slender, the silver girl-flame 
Called a dancer? 

Were you the contours 
Of round breasts and slim thighs? 
Were you bronze lashes 
And amber of young eyes? 

Were you the tinted delight 
Of frail gauzes? 

Of winged feet in rhythmic 
Pale flashes and pauses? 

There is no wind; 

A breath then must stir you; 

If not a dancer, 

What were you? What were you? 


81 





--eWs-— 

Peter Schatt 

Peter Schatt came west, when West was 
new, 

Staked out a claim four-square and true; 
Lived there alone, homesteaded it, 

Then, unlike others, didn’t quit, 

But added to his holdings till 
His lands included all Schatt’s Hill. 

He built great barns and a log house 
Beneath the fragrant cedar boughs; 

And sent “outside” for a hausfrau, 

A team of Percherons, a cow. 

He laid a road and surfaced it 
With stone hauled from Schatt’s gravel 
pit; 

He felled the forest, blasted stumps, 

Cut alder and vine maple clumps; 
Grubbed out the rampant poison oak — 
The slashings made a mighty smoke! 

And as the ground was cleared and bare, 
Set row on row of fruit trees there. 

(No better prunes than Schatt’s are 
known!) 

_ 





-eW9- 

Then as his ten fine sons were grown 
He deeded each a fertile plot — 

So generous was Peter Schatt! — 

To plant to walnuts, grain or what. 

And to his daughters was as fair 
For when each wed, she had her share. 

As for the children they begot, 

There was a tract for every tot — 

A double tract for those named Schatt! 
He built a school and saw it fill 
With youngsters born upon Schatt’s Hill; 
And, this the undiverging rule, 

Schatt schoolma’ams only taught Schatt’s 
school. 

He was the law; an erring Schatt 
Was evicted and forgot. 

He raised a place for worship too — 

A family to every pew — 

A church that ell-wise might be pieced 
Out as the tribe of Schatt increased; 

An edifice with bell and spire, 

Schatts in the pulpit, in the choir, 

And on their knees to lieber Gott, 


83 





-eW9-- 

(Who is to blame them if they thought 
In lineaments He was a Schatt?) 

Still even Schatts are not immortal; 

The patriarch died—but with a chortle 
That with the grave was nowise stopped 
The root and branch of Peter Schatt. 


84 





Back of a Mountain 

A man lived alone where wind is born, 

Where night is a hawk and noon is morn; 

Back of a mountain on a tittle of land 

Thin as a crust, wide as a hand. 

(A slice of earth is the size of a tittle, 

Almost too steep for a plow to whittle; 

Just room — no more — for a kepp of 
wild bees, 

For a strawberry plot, for a windrow of 
trees. 

And for a cabin, shake-sided and small, 

To cling like a midge to a wrinkled rock 
wall.) 

And there was the mountain for mother 
and wife, 

For joy and for grief like a two-bladed 
knife. 

There were dawns; there were noons in 
faceted rows; 

There were intimacies of stars and of 


snows; 


85 





--eWa- 

There were swift-flowering summers, and 
winters with hoary 

Drifts piling to his low second story. 

Then a stranger with speech that burst 
like a rocket 

With plans for an inn and a pike in his 
pocket, 

Climbed to the eyrie and offered him 
money 

For tittle and cabin, strawberries and 
honey. 

And somehow by sundown the tittle was 
sold, 

The mountain exchanged for a wallet of 
gold; 

Repleteness of days bartered off for a tally 

Of hours slowly notched one by one from 
a valley. 


Long after a man passed that way alone— 
He strode like a king who returns to his 
own. 


86 





-eWs- 

He carried his head as if death were a 
crown 

And he went up the mountain and never 
came down. 


87 



Ilk 






Bread 


Wheat is still. It makes no sound 
As it pushes from the ground. 

As it runs its slow, serene 
Course in rows of tender green. 

Wheat is quiet; as it grows 
It only whispers what it knows. 

Wheat is mute — till it is fed 
To children as a loaf of bread. 

Then it is laughter; it is song; 

It is clamor all day long. 


88 





Butter 


Butter is music of wind that passes 
Through blue alfalfa and supple grasses. 

It is sun on meadows; it is lyric notes 
Of rain and honey in clover throats. 

It is the pale gold rhythmic tread 
Of summer on a slice of bread. 


89 





The New Bridge 


The new bridge 
Spanning the Willamette 
Is a nude boy 
Leaping a stream. 

It is swift sure grace, 
White abandon, 
Laughter. 

It is an unsullied impulse 
Arrested in concrete. 





Fir Forest 


Up above, a passing breeze 
Undulates the tops of trees, 

But in the green depths where I sit 
Is no stir or feel of it. 

No grass blade bends; no leaf turns; 
No breath disturbs the peace of ferns. 
Only in the cool, sweet hush 
Is the call of thrush to thrush, 

And all around me everywhere 
A gentle sound like murmured prayer. 


9 1 




























Acknowledgments 

Acknowledgment is gratefully made of the courtesy 
of the following publications in permitting the use 
of copyrighted poems: 

Sunset: Orchardist, Black Raspberry Bushes, 
Timberline, A Mountain in Midsummer, Wild 
Geese, When I Remember, Cleaning Day. 

The Commonweal: If I Listen Long and Long, 
Motoring at Night, The Old Bull, Country 
Doctor, Slippers, Crushed Mint, First Signs. 

The New York Times: The Sun Rises, Hill 
Dweller. 

American Mercury: Concerning the Speech of 
Mountains. 

Modern Priscilla: Winter Evening. 

The Frontier: Dawn and New Snow, Calypsos, 
The Grand Dalles Hills, Fireweed, Peter Schatt, 
Back of a Mountain. 

Hollands: Playground. 

Contemporary Verse: Something Called a 
Shadow, At a Lunch Counter. 

Poetry: Labyrinth, Dust Motes, Knitting Fac¬ 
tory, Beads, Poverty Buys —, Winter Orchard. 





The Christian Century: Who Knows a Moun¬ 
tain, Consanguinity, Prodigality, The Certain 
Calm, Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Sea-going, 
Minutiae, When April Came, Discovery, Har¬ 
bingers. 

The Forge: Night Sounds, Wheat Field, 
Chinook Wind, Fields, i860, Rebel. 

The Ladies’ Home Journal: Wind is a Cat. 

Muse and Mirror: Silver Thaw, Dust, In a 
Show Case, The Invader, The Reflection, To a 
Girl Poet With a Lover, These Are the Strong. 
The New York Sun: Mountain Alders, In the 
Night, Refugee. 

The Harp: Eulalie. 

The Christian Science Monitor: A Song for 
Churning. 

The Charleston Evening Post: Dream Substance. 
The Youth’s Companion: The Puddle. 

The Lyric West: Remembered Things, On the 
Market, The Tower Clock, This Mountain, The 
New Bridge. 

The Buccaneer: In the Park. 

San Francisco Review: Before Storm. 

The Tanager: Sunset on the Columbia. 

The Northwestern Miller: Bread, Butter. 





book of 
poems has 
been set in 
Garamont mon¬ 
otype, a type face 
particularly adapted to 
Ethel Romig Fuller’s 
delightful verse. The cut of 
the Garamont characters, 
because of its elegance 
and a feeling of 
movement, is a 
sharp spur to 
the imag¬ 
ination. 














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